The poll of 800 registered voters last week shows Walker at 47
percent, and Burke, the former state commerce secretary, at 45 percent,
with a 3.5 percent margin of error.

The poll is far from a prediction of what will actually happen in the
election. Marquette pollster Charles Franklin says the survey also
found that 70 percent of respondents don’t know enough about Burke to
like or dislike her. Franklin says that ultimately the results show a
sizable number of people know what they have in Walker.

Given the margin of error, this is a statistical dead heat and there
will be no celebrating in the governor’s office over it. The campaign
hasn’t started, ads haven’t run (at least, none that I’ve heard), most
positions haven’t been staked out. Given a choice between Scott Walker
and the mystery box, half of Wisconsinites choose the mystery box. Since
she’s unknown, that half isn’t so much pro-Burke as anti-Walker. Some
of those going with Walker right now have to be persuadable — it’s just
playing the odds — and Walker can’t manage the majority it would take to
win a two-person race.

None of which is to say that Walker is headed toward a certain loss,
but he should have all the advantages and the polling shows he has none —
or if he does, that they’re statistically insignificant. If this latest John Doe probe starts to rock the governor’s boat, he could find himself swamped.